The soldiers took Jesus to the palace of the high priest, the leader of the Jewish people. His house was near, or a part of, the temple. It was night, but there were priests, scribes and others waiting, as had been planned, to question and witness against Jesus. They wanted to hurry through a trial of Jesus when most of the people would not see or know what they did.
These men who gathered in the palace knew the laws given to Moses to direct them how to give any accused person a fair trial with witnesses. They would know the words by the prophet, “O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Mic. 6:88He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8)).
Injustice
They did not do justly or love mercy. They had before tried to puzzle Jesus with questions and have Him speak wrongly. Because He had told them God’s words and had shown their ways to be wrong, they were so angry that they determined to condemn Him to death, although He had done no wrong.
Their witnesses did not speak truthfully, and they did not agree in what they said. At last the high priest asked Jesus, “Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”
The Lord answered plainly, “I am,” and told them of His coming with power.
The high priest called His answer “blasphemy,” words against God. Then they all agreed Jesus deserved to die.
There were certain things people of those days did to show their feelings to others; they “rent,” or tore, their clothes to show great grief or shame. But the high priest was not to do so (Lev. 21:1010And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes; (Leviticus 21:10)), yet the high priest that night rent his clothes to show he thought the words of the Lord Jesus were shameful.
Some of the men spit in the face of Jesus to show their contempt of Him; others covered His eyes and then struck Him with their hands (called “buffeting”) and said for Him to name who struck Him.
Meekness
However, those men had no right to punish anyone by death; all they could do was to accuse and witness against Jesus and to send Him to the Roman ruler for another trial. They hurried to do this early in the morning.
Further Meditation
1. What produced the hatred these men had for the Lord Jesus?
2. What other scriptural principles were violated that day?